PHILADELPHIA CHROMOSOME IN PRETHERAPEUTIC CASES OF CHRONIC MYELOGENOUS LEUKEMIA

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a clonal myel0 proliferative disorder due to neoplastic transformation of myeloid stem cells. The characteristic Philadelphia Chromosome translocation t(9:22) (q(34): q(11)) juxta poses the c-abl oncogene from chromosome 9 with break point cluster region (bcr) on chromosome 22 resulting in the generation of aberrant bcr/abl transcripts. The abnormal bcr/abl tyrosine kinase gene product has enhanced activity compared to the wild type c-abl tyrosine kinase and is believed central to the pathogenesis of CML. Most of the patients in chronic phase who are treated with cytotoxic agents eventually develop a fatal blast phase that is the end stage in which the patient usually fails to respond combination chemotherapy and only treatment remain after that is allogenic bone marrow transplantation. Since the philadelphia chromosome is the most consistant abnormality in CML patients and as it possess both diagnostic as well as prognostic importance, it's detection is mandatory to establish the diagnosis of CML and for planning of chemotherapy. Our study is a preliminary work to re-establishing the finding of previous workers and to detect out any other associated or new reccuring chromosomal anomalies in CML patients. The bone marrow samples of 89 CML patients (54 males & 35 females) diagnosed clinically and pathologically were collected in heparinised RPMI-1640 culture media aseptically with informed consent from patients and their guardian in Hematology section of pathology Dept. during the time period from Nov-2006 to May 2008. But the most common additional structural chromosomal aberration found here was t(15: 17), which is relatively rare in available literature. To establish this as a newly recurring additional chromosomal aberration in CML patients, large database analysis is required.